Miyamoto explains why you don’t actually fight Bowser in Super Mario Bros

The legend that is Shigeru Miyamoto recently received a prestigious Japanese cultural award for his acclaimed work over the years and took the opportunity at the event to share a tidbit about the creation of Super Mario Bros. Mr. Miyamoto says that one of the many standout things of the classic game is that Mario doesn’t have to actually fight Bowser as you simply run and jump to the right and hit the bridge switch and Bowser is no more. He designed it that way because Nintendo had issues designing a standard boss battle at the time. Mr. Miyamoto said he thought the end result was surprisingly fun and was ” really happy when I realised that.” Here’s what he said:

“When we were kids, we’d look out the window, point, and imagine people running, flying, falling into rivers …and so on,” Miyamoto said. “In Super Mario, you can actually do that.”

Miyamoto then tried to identify what he saw as Super Mario Bros.‘ biggest invention — the most intriguing aspect of the original platformer. “Mario doesn’t actually fight Bowser,” Miyamoto said. “Normally, if there’s a boss at the end, you have to fight him, right?”

Miyamoto revealed that, while conceptualizing the game, Nintendo had trouble designing a standard boss battle. “I realized that since it’s a game where you keep running to the right, how about making it so that the person who reaches the far right wins?” Miyamoto recalled. “Then I had a brilliant idea: ‘Why not just jump over the opponent instead of fighting?’ All you have to do is jump over Bowser, and he’ll fall. I found it surprisingly fun when I tried it, and I was really happy when I realized that.”

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